Two Poems by Michael Ceraolo

 

J. B.

 

Bachelor was the politician's perfect word for me:

it told the truth as far as it went,

so I wasn't exactly lying,

                                     but

it didn't begin to encompass the whole truth

Now there have always been identity politics,

                                                                  but

in my time it was mostly party and/or region

(class was always an unspoken identity,

though made crystal clear),

                                         and

some percentage of people who shared your identity

would cast their votes for you no matter what

I understand things have changed somewhat,

personal or group traits more to the forefront

I haven't yet been able to decide

whether the percentage of people

who would vote for me would be higher

if I were around today and came out as gay

 

 

The Lincoln Trilogy

 

       Prologue

 

You saw the title and probably thought,

Not another work about Honest Abe?

What more could be left to say about him?

Since you've read this far I'll let you know

these three pieces, plus an interlude,

are spoken by me, Robert T. Lincoln,

often called, during Dad's White House tenure,

The Prince of Rails as a way to denigrate

both of us; only the first work

will concern Dad, for reasons

that will become obvious

 

 

          1865

 

There was such a stampede to the White House

on that Good Friday evening

that I honestly can't remember

who was the first to tell me about Dad;

let all claim credit who will

I rushed to the Petersen House

where Dad had been taken,

to spend the next nine hours

in "interminable agony",

alternating between comforting Mother

                                                         and

"the hopeless watching,

                                    the anguished weeping"

the guilt over whether I could have

prevented this had I attended the play,

                                                         and

"finally, the other, peaceful stillness of death"

 

 

           1881

 

Saturday, July 2nd

President Garfield and some of the Cabinet

were leaving the District's malarial climate

for cooler weather up north

I had some War Department business

to attend to today,

                            but

I would be meeting them tomorrow

The party was departing

from the Baltimore and Potomac Depot

and I had gone there to see them off

I was only ten yards or so away

when I heard the sound of the gunshots

I made record time to the President's side,

                                                               and,

in an unconscious replay of Stanton with Dad,

took what control could be taken and issued orders:

sending my driver to find Dr. Bliss

and have him meet us at the White House,

putting troops around the White House

in case there were the first shots

of a new insurrection,

                                and

putting troops around the jail to prevent a lynching

 

I was mostly at the White House the next three days

I thought he would be the fourth President to die

on that happy day for our nation:

"I wish I felt better about the President

He is an awfully wounded man"

                                                 But

when that day passed, and then many others,

I and the rest of the Cabine,

indeed the entire nation,

entertained the hope his recovery would be complete:

"we are bound

he shall find everything in good order

when he takes the desk again"

 

He never did

 

 

        Interlude:  1884, 1888

 

I had no premonitions

such a fate would befall me,

                                          but

I took my name out of the running

for either of the top two positions,

                                                  because

"The Presidential office

is but a gilded prison

The care and worry outweigh, to my mind,

the honour which surrounds the position"

"I hope that no such responsibility

will be thrust upon me"

                                   and,

thankfully, it wasn't

 

 

          1901

 

I was no longer in public life

since I had left the ambassadorship

to the Court of St. James eight years ago

I was a private citizen,

president of the Pullman Company,

and in that dual capacity

I was journeying to Buffalo

for the Pan-American Exposition

in this first year of the next century,

a century I believed would belong

to my country and my company

I arrived on the evening of September 6th

and was told of what had happened

earlier that day to President McKinley

I was taken to where he was being treated,

and visited with him for a few minutes:

he seemed on the road to recovery,

and still seemed that way two days later

when I visited him again,

                                      so

the family and I left for home

 

But the third time was not the charm,

                                                       and

even though I didn't believe in curses,

I had to think long and hard whether

such a fate had been placed on me

Since I also didn't believe

in Fate or Providence

or whatever name one wishes to give it,

I concluded that it hadn't

                                        But

there are things no one understands

or can explain satisfactorily

Michael Ceraolo is a 65-year-old retired firefighter/paramedic and active poet who has had two full-length books (Euclid Creek, from Deep Cleveland Press; 500 Cleveland Haiku, from Writing Knights Press) published, and has two more, Euclid Creek Book Two and Lawyers, Guns, and Money, in the publication pipeline.